Honeybee pollen, a material of royal jelly, is the pollen ball that has been carried by worker honeybees back to the hive in sacs on their legs and stored as a food for young bee. The pollen gathered from the flowers of plants and mixed with parotin and bee salivary secretions released from the mouthpart of honeybees is referred to as “honeybee pollen”.
1 g of honeybee pollen contains two thousand to six hundred thousand pollen particles in combination with about two hundred other ingredients, including twelve of sixteen minerals essential to the human body. The honeybee pollen is loaded with more vitamin C than other foods. According to a report, 4.9 g of fiber is contained in 100 g of honeybee pollen. The composition of honeybee pollen according to the Korea Beekeeping Association is as presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1IngredientTypesContentProteins—23-25%Carbohydrates—25-27%Minerals17 or more types2.5-3.0% Amino acids18 or more typesHigh content of 10 aminoacids in addition to 8essential amino acidsVitamins16 or more typesHigh contentOthersEnzymes,20-25%coenzymes, etc.
According to the Korea Beekeeping Association, the honeybee pollen contains rutin (17 mg/g) making the blood vessels strong to strengthen the capillaries and about 5,000 enzymes boosting metabolism and digestive functions to enhance the condition of bodily strength and stamina and strengthen the physiological functions, thereby improving autotherapeutic abilities and immunity and helping prevent geriatric diseases and arteriosclerosis. Further, the honeybee pollen is rich in enzymes of all kinds and vitamin B, providing anti-aging functions, helping skin regeneration, and preventing skin aging. Containing a hormone called “gonadotropin” similar to the pituitary hormone, it activates the generative functions and makes curative effects against prostatitis and prostatism. Besides, the antianemic factor contained in the honeybee pollen causes a rapid increase in the number of red blood cells and hemoglobin to help the cure of anemia and also makes good effects in reducing the stress, improving neuropathy, promoting concentration and retentive memory, alleviating menopausal syndrome and premenstrual syndrome, increasing dietetic effects and a recovery from illness, preventing adult diseases, and enhancing digestive functions.
According to the results of studies in Europe, the honeybee pollen is very effective in improving the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (Buck et al., 1990, British Journal of Urology, Treatment of outflow tract obstruction due to benign prostatic hyperplasia with the pollen extract, cernilton. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 66(4), 398-404; Yasumoto et al., 1995, Clinical Therapeutics, Clinical evaluation of long-term treatment using cernitin pollen extract in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia, 17(1), 82-87). Hence, the dried honeybee pollen is formulated in the form of pills and currently available for the cure of various prostatic diseases, but it has never been permissioned as a pharmaceutical substance. The honeybee pollen currently available is mostly used in the form of health supplements or food additives.
Korean Registration Patent No. 10-1180909 discloses a preparation method for a fermented honeybee pollen liquor with improved flavor and a fermented honeybee pollen liquor prepared by the method. The method of the cited patent includes the steps of performing pulverization of honeybee pollen into powder and then fermenting the honeybee pollen powder with either one strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Lactobacillus plantarum and another strain, Aspergillus niger, to prepare a fermented honeybee pollen liquor with improved flavor and absorbable nutrients. Korean Registration Patent No. 10-0894834 is directed to a preparation method for fermented pollen, a fermented pollen prepared by the method, and a food including the fermented pollen. The method of the cited patent includes mixing pollen with at least one selected from the group consisting of a grain, a bean, and a rice bran, sterilizing and cooling the pollen mixture, and then inoculating filamentous fungi and bacteria into the pollen mixture to cause fermentation and prepare a fermented pollen. By the fermentation method, the outer covering of pollen is decomposed so that the active ingredients of pollen can be taken in the form of a food with efficiency.
The shell structure of honeybee pollen consists of an outer covering, exine, and an inner covering, intine. The exine is mostly hard to break down by animals, insects, strong acids, alkali, digestive enzymes, etc. (Brooks, Shaw 1997, Recent developments in the chemistry, biochemistry, geochemistry, and post-tetrad ontogeny of sporopollenins derived from pollen and spore exine. Heslop-Harrison, J(ed) pollen: development and physiology. Butterworths London. Pp. 99-114). Further, the honeybee pollen is not easy to break with satisfaction by pulverization using a ball mill or a hammer mill as well as a French presser, a Bantam mill, a glass bead mill, a homogenizer, or a sonicator (Bong-Woo, Lee, 1989. a study on the change of chemical ingredients in the processing of pollen loads. a master's thesis, Graduate school of food technology in Chung-Ang University). When taking honeybee pollen as a pharmaceutical composition, it is important to break the hard exine of the honeybee pollen so that the contents can be instantly subjected to the actions of digestive enzymes. In making the use of honeybee pollen in cosmetics, the physical disruption of exine and the development of appropriate formulations are particularly required.
In other words, there is an urgent demand for developing a method for preparing a honeybee pollen that involves preparing a honeybee pollen composition in the form of a formulation available for easier ingestion of the honeybee pollen in the body or skin by efficiently destroying the cell walls of the honeybee pollen rather than using fermentation with the aid of bacteria and fermenting agents added to the honeybee pollen.